A renaissance for AM radio in Montreal

Steve Faguy, The Gazette08.10.2012

Though he just started there in May, Ted Bird will, like other TSN 990 employees, need to find other work if Bell succeeds in turning it into a French-language all-sports station.Dave Sidaway
/ Dave Sidaway / THE GAZETTE

Haitian radio station CPAM Radio Union was firebombed overnight in July.Peter Mccabe
/ THE GAZETTE

Paul Tietolman, left, and Rajiv Pancholy are part of a team that has applied to the CRTC for a new English news-talk station at 600AM. It has already gotten approval for a French station at 940, expected to launch soon.Dario Ayala
/ The Gazette

Aaron Rand is starting his second year as the afternoon drive host at CJAD.
/ Astral Radio

Related

To get you up to speed on everything that’s happened recently and is on the doorstep for this fall, here’s a look at what’s going on, on a station-by-station basis:

600 — TBA

This frequency, which has been silent since the days of CIQC, could soon be home to Montreal’s newest English-language radio station. Businessmen Paul Tietolman, Nicolas Tétrault and Rajiv Pancholy have applied to the CRTC for an English news-talk station, which would be a sister station to the French station that was approved last year for 940 AM. The application will be heard at the Sept. 10 CRTC hearing. Approval is likely, since the CRTC indicated in November that the only reason the station wasn’t approved then was a lack of available frequency. No decisions have been made yet as far as programming, but former CJAD program director Steve Kowch and former 940 News program director Jim Connell are part of the management team. The group is proposing the station have live local programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with live coverage of breaking news.

Montreal’s English sports talk station is in limbo. Owner Bell Media has proposed switching the station from English to French (but keeping its all-sports format) in order to respect ownership limits in its proposed purchase of Astral Media. An application to change the station’s licence will be heard at the Sept. 10 CRTC hearing, and the commission has received hundreds of comments. As they await a decision, which could take months, it’s business as usual. A change in frequency, approved in November by the CRTC, will see the station move from 990 to 690 kHz in September (no exact date is set yet, Bell Media says), which is a clear channel and should have a better signal in the West Island and other areas at night. TSN will simulcast on both frequencies for three months before vacating 990.

Montreal’s all-traffic station, which turns one year old on Sept. 6, isn’t getting anyone to tune in for hours on end, so its market share is almost zero, but about a million francophone listeners are tuning in for at least a minute or two every week. Thankfully, the station doesn’t have to worry too much about advertising, since it gets a subsidy of $1.5 million a year from the Quebec ministry of transport. That deal lasts another two years.

Montreal’s self-described news-talk leader isn’t announcing any big changes this fall, program director Chris Bury says. Its weekday lineup, shuffled a year ago to make room for veteran Aaron Rand, remains stable, with Andrew Carter, Tommy Schnurmacher, Ric Peterson, Suzanne Desautels and Barry Morgan. The station added Montreal Impact home games to its schedule this year as a way of compensating for the loss of Canadiens games to TSN Radio, though with the proposed language switch of TSN, Bell plans to bring Habs games back to CJAD. CJAD also continues to air Alouettes games. The biggest change behind the scenes is one of venue — it is moving over the coming weeks, along with CHOM and Virgin, from Fort St. to the Astral building at Papineau Ave. and René Lévesque Blvd.

940 — TBA

Silent since Jan. 29, 2010, this clear-channel frequency will soon roar back to life as Tietolman-Tétrault-Pancholy Media launches a French-language news-talk station this fall or early next year. Approved by the CRTC in November, the station would, like its proposed English counterpart at 600 AM, have live local programming 24/7, and hosts with differing political views would be paired together à la The Odd Couple.

990 — TBA (Radio Fierté)

TSN Radio’s move this fall from 990 to 690 kHz will make room for a new French-language station targeting Montreal’s gay community, which the CRTC also approved last November. Radio Fierté will be owned by Evanov Radio Group, which owns Proud FM in Toronto. The station will operate with a hybrid music/talk format, starting at some point in 2013, vice-president Carmela Laurignano says. They’re still in the first stages, she says, and have their eye on a couple of key management people.

This frequency will be the new home of Montreal’s Haitian radio station, which operates entirely in French. The frequency change from 1610, approved by the CRTC in 2009, is expected soon, along with a power increase. The station is still recovering from a firebombing of its Crémazie Blvd. offices in July.

A Laval-based French-language station playing oldies music, CJLV’s future is in doubt. A year ago, owner Jasvir Singh Sandhu wrote to the CRTC to say he had already invested more than $500,000 in the money-losing station and was unwilling to keep supporting it in its current form. Owner Radio Humsafar Inc. proposed turning it into a multilingual ethnic station, threatening to shut it down otherwise. In March, the CRTC denied the application, citing the market’s inability to support another multilingual radio station. The station continues to operate.

Concordia University’s student-run radio station has an eclectic mix of programming, from talk to jazz to heavy metal to gospel music.

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